These are by definition christian trolls; they are students at a theological seminary. Chances are, they take oaths seriously.

So, in the registration agreement, include a short but prominent explanation of why WWGHA forbids this kind of trolling. Then say something like:

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If you are a Christian, you swear by Almighty God that you are not registering with this forum for the sole purpose of fulfilling an academic requirement.

It seems to me that some christian students would be deterred by such a requirement, ie they wouldn't consciously make a false oath in God's name.

As a back-up, you could inform Dembski (and any others) of this change in our registration requirements. He would then at least know that any of his christian students who subsequently submitted WWGHA posts as part of his course had lied on oath in order to do so. He might not be bothered, of course. Or, he might tell his students to stop coming here.

These are by definition christian trolls; they are students at a theological seminary. Chances are, they take oaths seriously.

...Chances are they have no problem lying for God, either. We've all seen first hand how dishonest they are. What's an oath to a bunch of nonbelievers when they can rationalize that thousands of souls hinge on their passing grade?

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So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. --Bertrand Russell

We've seen them be dishonest, yes. But Gnu is suggesting that we make them confront their dishonesty on a conscious level. It won't stop them lying of course, but it could plant a seed. Hopefully they'll feel at least a little shame and wonder why they did it.

We've seen them be dishonest, yes. But Gnu is suggesting that we make them confront their dishonesty on a conscious level. It won't stop them lying of course, but it could plant a seed. Hopefully they'll feel at least a little shame and wonder why they did it.

lol, I dunno... Are they capable of experiencing shame? I have no evidence that they do...

j/k

I think SmartNoodles ended up having to confront her dishonesty on a conscious level. I think it probably does plant a seed in some.

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So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. --Bertrand Russell

But that doesn't happen with these students. They talk for the sake of talking until they've written their 2000 words, then they disappear. Any discussion is fake, because of the hidden agenda.

True. But in doing so they provide argument that shows the weakness in the creation myth. I like seeing a healthy supply of creation-argument failure.

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If you do... I have a cunning plan...

Putting aside my personal need to enjoy the failure of others, your idea has some merit. Some of them will pay no attention to the clause, but some of them will so hopefully it'll reduce some of the trolling.

Smarties for Gnu.

Agga

Logged

I've left WWGHA now, so do everyone else a favour and don't bother replying to my old posts and necromancing my threads.

Well, I'm pleased my idea has some merit. Unfortunately, we can't conduct anything approaching a scientific experiment, as we don't know actually how many of these trolls there are, so we won't be able to tell if amending the registration agreement has any effect.

But, amending it would be simple and quick, so what is there to lose by doing it?

Agamemnon, you're right that many Christians lie for God, and like Venomfangx they will continue to do so. But I still think that some Christians would baulk at lying on oath - in exactly the same way that many atheists may tell lies, but would think twice about lying on oath, for example in court - which is a crime, after all.

Looking at my wording again, I would suggest a change. Instead of:

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If you are a Christian, you swear by Almighty God that you are not registering with this forum for the sole purpose of fulfilling an academic requirement.

... I'd replace by Almighty God with on your deity's name. First, because we're agnostics so we don't use capitalized proper names for imaginary beings; second, because using the word "name" echoes the Commandment which we are invoking: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Gnu.

PS. I have been maligning Smartnoodles, by the way - she has returned to continue her thread. Apologies to her. (But Breckmin still seems a viable candidate.)

My guess is that these leaders and teachers, whom must have vast knowledge of the Bible are knowingly deceiving these students. The TV evangelists whom truly began their quest desiring to save souls, must have at some time ran across a contradiction or 1000. At this point they made a conscious decision to either ignore it (the contradiction) or to continue the lie.

I found my truths by reading and studying the bible. So if my Hillbilly High School Graduate brain can recognize the errors, then I believe that any Student, Teacher or Preacher whom has truly read and studied must come to the same conclusions.

This being said, They MUST, knowingly and deliberately deceive the flocks, which means that they could not care less if their students ignore the same truths or have to use deceptive practices in order to fulfill the requirements of the class.

If you are a Christian, you swear by Almighty God that you are not registering with this forum for the sole purpose of fulfilling an academic requirement.

I would remove the word "sole" from the above--it's only an anchor for rationalizing their way around the oath.

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If you are a Christian, you swear by Almighty God that you are not registering or posting on this forum in fulfillment of an academic requirement.

A good series of posts, Gnu. This does correlate well with how SmartNoodles presented herself--her reference to Jenner seemed...pre-packaged--as if it were part of the course she was taking. Her link to the Discovery Institute's BEST foot--essentially the only "peer reviewed" ID article to get published also aroused suspicions for me.

It's now been 5 days since her last sign-in. Her last post to me seemed to ignore my points, yet it contained a lot of verbiage (and cabbage). That all correlates with the Dembski class requirement very well, it seems to be.

I THINK IT WOULD BE AN EXCELLENT IDEA TO FORCE THE OATH ON NEW MEMBERS.

Truthfinder:the birds adapt and change through million of years in order to survive ,is that science, then cats should evolve also wings to better catch the birdsMailbag:On a side note, back in college before my conversion, I actually saw a demon sitting next to me in critical thinking class.